1. Field of the Invention.
This invention relates to apparatus for selectively securing and locking a lid on a container such as a box or the like, and more particularly to locking apparatus requiring positional settings of elements projecting rom the box.
2. Description of the Prior Art. It is highly desirable to provide certain boxes and the like with lids which can selectively be locked in closed position on the box or released for removal from the box. Locking apparatus has heretofore been proposed in which the box lid is held in place by a series of permanently installed fasteners which must be damaged or destroyed in order to remove the lid, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 996,918 issued July 4, 1911 to Ellsworth E. Flora.
In some of the previous known locking apparatus, the fasteners which secure the lid to the box are semi-permanent, being held in place by screws and the like removable from the exterior of the box. An example of this type of construction may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 1,894,022, issued Jan. 10, 1933 to Victor I. Cruser. Another exemplar of this approach may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,511,958 issued June 20, 1950 to David G. Williams.
U.S. Pat. No. 579,057 issued Mar. 16, 1897 to James F. Gilliland discloses a box having a sliding cover held in place by a "button" or disk mounted for rotation on the end of the box and having a portion cut away so that, when the disk is rotated to bring the cut out portion out of registration with the sliding lid, the lid is held against removal and, when the button is rotated to register the cut out portion with the sliding lid, the lid may then be removed.
Other attempts to removably secure the lid in place on the box provide apparatus on the outside of the box which may easily be tampered with. An example of such structure is found in U.S. Pat. No. 1,084,447, issued Jan. 13, 1914 to Gilbert Kingstedt. The known locking devices therefore either require that the fasteners be damaged or destroyed in order to remove the lid, or make the fasteners accessible from outside the box permitting unauthorized entry.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,910,737, issued Nov. 3, 1959 to James MacMillan shows a structural toy having an ear extending from one part which can be inserted into a slot in the adjacent part, with the parts being fastened together by means of a nut and bolt. MacMillan has nothing to do with boxes or other containers.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,777 illustrates a mechanism for clamping a split rotary anvil onto a rotatable shaft, and also has nothing at all to do with removably locking lids onto boxes.
The above-listed patents are believed to be relevant to the present invention because they were aduced by a prior art search made by an independent searcher, and a copy of each of the above-listed patents is supplied to the Patent and Trademark herewith. The term "prior art" as used herein or in any made by or on behalf of the applicant means only that any document or thing referred to as prior art bears, directly or inferentially, a date which is earlier than the effective date of this application.
No representation nor admission is made that any of the above-listed documents is part of the prior art in any acceptation of that term, or that no more pertinent information exists.